Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[szechuan]

Another thing that I kinda forgot, which is what Musk is counting on if my pump and dump theory is correct, is discovery. If Twitter take him to court, Musk will justify his exit strategy on Twitter's false bot numbers. If he can prove through discovery that they did this deal in bad faith on Twitter's behalf, he will probably settle for peanuts, and might not even face fraud charges. This is the justice system after all, way worse things than this have happened.

If that happens, Twitter will be dead. Twitter stock will be hot garbage, no investor will want to hold that once the bot numbers are proven to be way much than reported. If Musk is indeed smart, he will have planned this to set up a rival platform of his own, assuming he can walk away from all the litigation that will be coming his way.

Musk won't win.

[Edge-]

https://preview.redd.it/0v5xbrlti9b7...=webp&251e9ef7

Apparently, in this battle between liberty and death, Musk has chosen death.

[Forogil]

Musk won't win.

Just to clarify - there are three (types of) lawsuits against 'Musk' in this story:

Some investors sued Musk (and Twitter) to stop the buyout - that didn't work:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...n-musk-twitter

Some investors sued Musk for not promptly disclosing buying Twitter shares:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/13/twit...ose-stake.html

And then Twitter is suing Musk for trying to break the contract.
And legal experts indicate that the burden of proof is on Musk, not Twitter, regarding the bots.
https://www.bgr.in/apps/twitter-may-...llout-1295474/

My guess is that Twitter will win in all cases, but the US courts are a mess.

Note that there's more to the story:
https://www.bgr.in/features/twitter-...o-far-1295842/

• January 31, 2022: Elon Musk quietly starts acquiring Twitter’s shares.
• March 14, 2022, he had acquired over five percent of the company’s stake.
• March 24, 2022: Soon after, Tesla CEO began publicly criticising the micro-blogging platform. “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy…Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?,” he wrote in a tweet.
• April 4, 2022: Musk’s share in Twitter become public
• April 14, 2022: Days after, Musk disclosed that he made an offer to Twitter’s board to buy the company at $54.20 per share
• April 15, 2022: A day after, Twitter’s board adopted poison pill defence in a bid to thwart Musk’s hostile takeover attempt.
• April 26, 2022: A day later, Twitter announced that Musk will buy Twitter

So, it was not only that he bought the shares without disclosing it, he was also actively trying to tank the share price at that time.

[Mihalik]

Ah yes. Elon Musk, doing everything he can to be a bigger piece of shit than the Austin Powers villain Jeff Bezos.

[Paranoid Android]

I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.

Dems should also call off the attack – don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.

Musk tweet.

So him and Trump are having a little spat. Yet this tweet says a lot. I have little doubt he likes what Trump did as President and the only reason he can't give him public support is like many billionaires who do a cost benefit analysis realize he is too much of a liability be in the way of less tax cuts and regulations.

His Dem slight is of course priceless, which shows why he likes Trump. Telling Dems not to look on onset fascism and once again why this thread is long is Trump used Twitter to fuel an insurrection. So we of course are not suppose to bring it up anymore and we should forgive and forget. So Musk don't care if we get a fascist, just don't make so many waves on the way to fascism.

[Edge-]

Insert Ken Watanabe "Let them fight" gif here*

Please though, can we have Trump shitposting about Musk on his platform while Musk shitposts about Trump on Twitter? Is Trump killing his chances of getting unbanned even if Musk ends up being forced to buy the company he agreed to buy?

Also, is signing a deal to buy a company without the proper due diligence being done first a galaxy brain 32D chess move?

[Draco-Onis]

I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.

Dems should also call off the attack – don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.

Musk tweet.

So him and Trump are having a little spat. Yet this tweet says a lot. I have little doubt he likes what Trump did as President and the only reason he can't give him public support is like many billionaires who do a cost benefit analysis realize he is too much of a liability be in the way of less tax cuts and regulations.

His Dem slight is of course priceless, which shows why he likes Trump. Telling Dems not to look on onset fascism and once again why this thread is long is Trump used Twitter to fuel an insurrection. So we of course are not suppose to bring it up anymore and we should forgive and forget. So Musk don't care if we get a fascist, just don't make so many waves on the way to fascism.

Question is what do the Trump / Elon supporters do, it's like Mommy and Daddy are fighting lol.

[NED funded]

I hope Musk wins. I want twitter to crash and burn but at the same time I want a billionaire be forced to carry that bag.

My hatred of billionaires or overpriced tech companies??

[Forogil]

I hope Musk wins. I want twitter to crash and burn but at the same time I want a billionaire be forced to carry that bag.

My hatred of billionaires or overpriced tech companies??

But the advantage of the US court system is that only the lawyers get any money, so both sides lose!

[gondrin]

Well, Musk has possibly gotten the worst judge to rule in his favor as far as he is concerned.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...382679be4f7109

The judge overseeing Twitter Inc's $44 billion lawsuit against Elon Musk has a no-nonsense reputation as well as the distinction of being one of the few jurists who has ever ordered a reluctant buyer to close a U.S. corporate merger.

Kathaleen McCormick took over the role of chancellor or chief judge of the Court of Chancery last year, the first woman in that role. On Wednesday, she was assigned the Twitter lawsuit which seeks to force Musk to complete his deal for the social media platform, which promises to be one of the biggest legal showdowns in years.

"She already has a track record of not putting up with some of the worst behavior that we see in these areas when people want to get out of deals," said Adam Badawi, a law professor who specializes in corporate governance at the University of California Berkeley. "She is a serious, no-nonsense judge."

In contrast to Musk's brash and volatile behavior, she is known as soft-spoken, approachable and amiable -- but a person who also stands her ground. She advocates respect among litigants and integrity at legal conferences.

"We've always had each other's backs, we've always gone out for drinks after arguments and maintained this level civility," she told a gathering at the University of Delaware this year.

After weeks of confrontational tweets suggesting Twitter was hiding the true number of fake accounts, Musk said on Friday he was terminating the $54.20-per-Twitter share acquisition, worth $44 billion. On Tuesday, the social media platform sued.

Judges have ordered reluctant buyers to close corporate acquisitions only a handful of times, according to legal experts and court records. One of those was McCormick.

Last year, McCormick got the attention of Wall Street dealmakers by ordering an affiliate of private equity firm Kohlberg & Co LLC to close its $550 million purchase of DecoPac Holding Inc, which makes cake decorating products.

She described her ruling as "chalking up a victory for deal certainty" and rejected Kohlberg's arguments that it could walk away because of a lack of financing.

The case has many parallels to the Twitter deal. Like Musk, Kohlberg said it was walking away because DecoPac violated the merger agreement. Like Musk, Kohlberg argued in part that DecoPac failed to maintain ordinary operations.

There are also differences. Musk's deal is magnitudes bigger, involves a publicly traded target company in Twitter and might have implications for Tesla Inc, the electric vehicle maker that is the source of much of Musk's fortune.

In other cases, she has come down on the side of shareholders when they clashed with management.

Last year, she prevented energy company The Williams Cos Inc from adopting a so-called poison pill anti-takeover measure, saying it breached their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

Last month, she said shareholders of Carvana Co could sue the board for a direct offering of stock to select investors when the share price was depressed during the early pandemic.

A graduate of Notre Dame Law School, McCormick started her career with the Delaware branch of the Legal Aid Society, which helps low-income people navigate the court system.

She went into private practice "mainly for financial reasons," she told the Delaware Senate during her confirmation hearing, joining Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, one of the state's main firms for business litigation.

She joined the Court of Chancery in 2018 as a vice chancellor and became the first woman to lead the Court of Chancery last year.

Despite her mild manner, Eric Talley, who specializes in corporate law at Columbia Law School, said he doubts McCormick would be cowed by Musk.

"I would not be placing my bets on Chancellor McCormick suddenly becoming weak-kneed," he said.

[Draco-Onis]

Well, Musk has possibly gotten the worst judge to rule in his favor as far as he is concerned.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/comp...382679be4f7109

Frankly he will lose in front of any judge if Musk is allowed to get away with this it puts the entire M&A market into doubt which is much bigger than him. We are talking about trillions in stake if he wins and sets the precedence.

[Iain]

I hope Musk wins. I want twitter to crash and burn but at the same time I want a billionaire be forced to carry that bag.

My hatred of billionaires or overpriced tech companies??

At least that's consistent. What confuses me are the people who dismayed at Elon buying Twitter and are now hoping he's forced to buy it anyway. Wouldn't those people prefer Elon to back out of the deal? And, conversely, wouldn't all the Elon fans hope for the forced buy, therefore rooting for him losing, as well?

[P for Pancetta]

Another thing that I kinda forgot, which is what Musk is counting on if my pump and dump theory is correct.

If he was seriously and smart about buying Twitter he wouldn't have waived his due diligence, generally when you buy something that expensive you have a team of lawyers and whatnot do a lot of work to make sure you know what you're getting. Elon chose to waive this, and he signed it. He could've gotten access to the data if he wanted too, it's just a cop out.

[Poopymonster]

MMOchamp's second favorite lawyer breaks it down.

[ohwell]

Just to clarify - there are three (types of) lawsuits against 'Musk' in this story:

Some investors sued Musk (and Twitter) to stop the buyout - that didn't work:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...n-musk-twitter

Some investors sued Musk for not promptly disclosing buying Twitter shares:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/13/twit...ose-stake.html

And then Twitter is suing Musk for trying to break the contract.
And legal experts indicate that the burden of proof is on Musk, not Twitter, regarding the bots.
https://www.bgr.in/apps/twitter-may-...llout-1295474/

My guess is that Twitter will win in all cases, but the US courts are a mess.

Note that there's more to the story:
https://www.bgr.in/features/twitter-...o-far-1295842/

• January 31, 2022: Elon Musk quietly starts acquiring Twitter’s shares.
• March 14, 2022, he had acquired over five percent of the company’s stake.
• March 24, 2022: Soon after, Tesla CEO began publicly criticising the micro-blogging platform. “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy…Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?,” he wrote in a tweet.
• April 4, 2022: Musk’s share in Twitter become public
• April 14, 2022: Days after, Musk disclosed that he made an offer to Twitter’s board to buy the company at $54.20 per share
• April 15, 2022: A day after, Twitter’s board adopted poison pill defence in a bid to thwart Musk’s hostile takeover attempt.
• April 26, 2022: A day later, Twitter announced that Musk will buy Twitter

So, it was not only that he bought the shares without disclosing it, he was also actively trying to tank the share price at that time.

The only thing he has to prove is that they didn't give adequate data on the bots. He doesn't have to prove any percentage. If you're unwilling to give a true representative insight into that you can back out, but honestly I think this is all a ploy to get them to cooperate.

Regardless the damage to Twitter as a company is done so they want him to buy it. Their stock tanked last I was watching. Maybe not tanked but the deal is even more of a loss to him to accept which is nothing the company should be held accountable for as the price he wanted should stay locked in unless it comes to light that he was right about the bots.

- - - Updated - - -

"Wokesters" LMAO omg I almost blew chunks reading that in my head. You are so precious.

It's only funny because I know you actually believe this

It's only funny if you've ignored the mountain of evidence that it's true...

- - - Updated - - -

At least that's consistent. What confuses me are the people who dismayed at Elon buying Twitter and are now hoping he's forced to buy it anyway. Wouldn't those people prefer Elon to back out of the deal? And, conversely, wouldn't all the Elon fans hope for the forced buy, therefore rooting for him losing, as well?

The only people who don't want him to back out at this point that didn't want it to begin with are the people that are financially tied to the deal. Technically at this point if you're a shareholder you probably want it as the deal to purchase now way outvalues the stock.

[Forogil]

The only thing he has to prove is that they didn't give adequate data on the bots. He doesn't have to prove any percentage. If you're unwilling to give a true representative insight into that you can back out, but honestly I think this is all a ploy to get them to cooperate.

Wrong on several levels.

Twitter is only required to help Musk with reasonable requests that are needed in order to complete the deal; Twitter has helped him try to figure out the percentage of bots - but it seems very dubious that Musk would even need to know the number of bots to complete the deal - in particular as he wants to use the number to non-complete the deal.

And it seems clear that it is a ploy - but to back out of the deal.

Regardless the damage to Twitter as a company is done so they want him to buy it. Their stock tanked last I was watching.

Lots of stocks have declined (especially in the tech sector) - including Tesla. That's why Musk wants to back out.

The only people who don't want him to back out at this point that didn't want it to begin with are the people that are financially tied to the deal.

And anyone who wants contracts to be worth something, which includes most sane people and especially the courts.

[Fantomen]

Wrong on several levels.

Twitter is only required to help Musk with reasonable requests that are needed in order to complete the deal; Twitter has helped him try to figure out the percentage of bots - but it seems very dubious that Musk would even need to know the number of bots to complete the deal.

If Elon do plane to take a loan to buy Twitter, and he might use the Twitter stock as collateral, the bank might say, we think Twitter have inflated numbers, you only get 1 billion, compare to, now we know Twitters number is true, you get 10 billions.

Then we have the motive, Twitter is hell bent not to give out the data. Why? Do they try to hide somthing? Why do they not smile and say, how can I helpe you soon-to-be-my-boss? Here is the relevant data you asked for. See all is in perfect order, accounted to the highest standard, and the complet raw data, if you want to do a independent double check.

My-soon-not-to-be-my-boss wounder then will you transfer the money? Now then you have all the accounting and data you need to complet the deal.

[Forogil]

If Elon do plane to take a loan to buy Twitter, and he might use the Twitter stock as collateral, the bank might say, we think Twitter have inflated numbers, you only get 1 billion, compare to, now we know Twitters number is true, you get 10 billions.

How about actually reading up on the story? Musk did take a loan, but used Tesla - not Twitter stock - as collateral. There have been discussions about whether he might even face a margin call for Tesla, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

It's normal in a merger agreement to have financing as a condition for the deal - but Musk skipped that together with the due diligence.
Or to quote Twitter's lawsuit against Musk:

There is no financing contingency and no diligence condition

Then we have the motive, Twitter is hell bent not to give out the data.

Wrong again. The data wasn't part of the deal - and they have as far as I know they have given him enough; it's just that Musk claims that Musk is tooooooo stupid to analyze it - and remember that he wanted to buy Twitter in part to clean up the bots.

Yes, the 5% is part of Twitter's SEC filings - but errors in those parts are not ground for breaking the agreement; as listed in the agreement.

Musk also tries to break the contract because they fired some executives, ignoring that Twitter removed such conditions in the agreement.

See all is in perfect order, accounted to the highest standard, and the complet raw data, if you want to do a independent double check.

That's part of the due diligence. The normal way is to first sign a letter of intent, then do due diligence and negotiate and then write the actual merger agreement. Musk skipped those normal steps, and he cannot add that afterwards.

[Iain]

The only people who don't want him to back out at this point that didn't want it to begin with are the people that are financially tied to the deal. Technically at this point if you're a shareholder you probably want it as the deal to purchase now way outvalues the stock.

Exactly. But that would mean he has to win the lawsuit.

Which in turn means that people who don't want him to become the king of Twitter would have to root for him to win the lawsuit. Instead I'm seeing people who want to see him lose, even if losing means that he still ends up owning Twitter.

[jonnysensible]

i thought he was doin this so he could liquidate tesla stock without dropping the price too bad